


to a buried and a burning flame

by Amber_Brush-English (Amber_Brush)



Category: Fitz and the Fool Trilogy - Robin Hobb, Realm of the Elderlings - Robin Hobb
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Canon Non-Binary Character, First Time, Other, POV Second Person, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:34:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27061252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amber_Brush/pseuds/Amber_Brush-English
Summary: His voice is kind.  “Don’t fight it, Fitz. Don’t question it. For one night, let it all go.”
Relationships: FitzChivalry Farseer/Amber, FitzChivalry Farseer/Beloved, FitzChivalry Farseer/The Fool
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	to a buried and a burning flame

**Author's Note:**

> The title is a line from the song _Sunlight_ by Hozier.
> 
> This story takes place at the end of the chapter 36 of _Fool's Quest_ , near the end of the book, when Fitz goes to bed naked with the Fool in Kelsingra.
> 
> It's my first work in this fandom and English isn't my native language, so please tell me if anything's wrong! 
> 
> Enjoy...

His voice is kind.  “Don’t fight it, Fitz. Don’t question it. For one night, let it all go.”

And the sweetsleep in your veins makes you wonder yourself why you fight your own feelings so much. You always tried to persuade yourself that you're not like this, that you can't desire your best friend this way, but now your awareness of that belief being a lie is almost painful. 

You're tired to pretend and you don't care about what others think anymore. Not that anyone would be shocked, not in this time and not in these roles. Here, you're seen as Lady Amber's protector, and this title induces you two sharing a room - more than it, a bed. You haven't thought about it much until then, but the implications are quite clear.

They already believe that you're close… like that. What would it be like to become one again? You're already been, by other means, a long time ago. You fondly remember your sensation of harmony found again, of peace. You were like a broken plate, reunited. One soul in two bodies.

The Fool presses his back to your chest. His body is so lithe and vulnerable. You want to shield him from all the evil in the world. You already know you failed, at least twice, but you'd like to try to do better.

“I'll protect you”, you promise him again, because it's important that he knows how determined you are. In answer, he presses more against you. Your entire being opens itself and resolutely adore him.

And then a certain part of yourself reminds to the both of you that you went to bed naked.

Something very old and powerful rise from the depths of your being. A vertigo, a longing. It burns your heart and your loins. Your whole body yearns for the Fool, your Fool. You recognize the sensation, for having felt it towards others, only women so far. But you won't think about them tonight. You don't want to wake up bitter memories. This night is all about Beloved.

You wrap more tightly your arm around his waist, a gesture that you've did so many times before, but today you'd like it to mean more. His breath seems shallow, as if he didn't dare to make any sound that could drive you away. You kiss his shoulder like an unspoken question and he whispers: “What are you doing?” 

The yearning won't stop, it intoxicates you now. You don't know how to phrase it without sounding crude and then again, you discover that you don't care. 

“I want you”, you simply answer. A sigh. He deserves to know the full truth. “I had since a long time, but I didn't want to acknowledge it”, you admit afterwards.

You feel the Fool stirr in your strange bed without covers. He turns around and faces you with his blind eyes and an expression that you can't totally decipher. There's pain in it, and something more. Hope.

“But you had told me that you didn't...”

“I was wrong. About my feelings. About us.”

Slowly, you realize that a big part of you rejecting your attraction to the Fool wasn't really coming from yourself. It was as much a construct than your Skill walls, and tonight these walls are crashing to the ground. 

Now revealed, the violence of your desire astonishes you. Every fiber of your body craves for your Beloved. What surprises you the most is that it's a familiar feeling. Tonight, you finally dare to name it. Lust. This lust is a part of your love for him. And it has been since a long time. That's why Lord Golden entranced you so intensely. You couldn't help but stare him, mouth agape, and write secret poetry in your head. Later, you burned most of your letters about it. They sounded shameful.

They weren't.

And you also understand that this attraction doesn't lessen your friendship, not the least. It doesn't make it less pure. It just completes it. Rejecting these thoughts was a mistake.

“Can I kiss you?”, you ask softly. He nods, breathless, and for the very first time between you, it's you who initiates the kiss. 

It's a kiss worth a lifelong yearning. Not a peck on the mouth like in the Montains, not a confusing memories sharing like the second time. This third chance is the one of acceptance and forgiveness, an embrace of warmth, a welcome home.

The Fool explores your mouth and your tongues dance together, without the awkwardness of a first, neither the boredom of habit. It's old and anew. You wonder if he dreamt about it. It probably haunted his fantasies.

And the most private of yours.

Keeping your distances was a strategy to keep yourself in line, to follow what's acceptable. You couldn't afford to challenge your surroundings. Not then. In Buckkeep, you already had the secret of being a Farseer bastard and a Old Blood folk to guard. For as much you could have wanted it, cultivating another secret would have been too dangerous. Lord Golden benefited from his perfume of scandal, it added to his oddities. You didn't have the same protection.

A long time ago, you argued over this very subject. Being seen as unnatural, just because of your desires. The Six-Duchies are not kind to this peculiar kind of attraction. So you buried it and tried to take distances. It didn't went well. You even thought you'd lose your Fool because of it. You don't want to feel like this ever again. 

“I love you”, you tell him. Not for the first time, but today you won't add anything else to the statement to undermine it. 

He gasps, his sightless eyes are shining, he's trembling in your adoring arms. 

“I love you too. Always had.”

He laughs and it makes your heart bleed when he adds: “I thought it was in vain.”

“I need to show you it's not.”

The Fool stills, as if he was sensing a danger you haven't.

“It's the sweetsleep talking, he mutters. I don't think you truly consent to this.”

“Yes, I do. The tea helped me to clear my head, and I only had very little of it”, you object.

The Fool was the one to advise you to drink the sweetsleep, you remember dreamily. To trust his judgment and to leave all caution. It's not like your formation of assassin to act imprudently in a foreign land, but the Fool never has been wise. And never were you as well. Not really.

You don't regret it. The drug doesn't weight you down; it only exacerbate your perceptions, sharpen your emotions. It feels like a coffee which would bring sleepiness. So, actually the opposite of coffee. But you appreciate its consequences.

The Fool is staring at you, without seeing you. He visibly tries to find balance between eagerness and prudence. A breathing contradiction, wounded in the past but amazed by your honesty. 

His mixed feelings show on his face, that you tenderly caress. His suspiciousness about your declaration pains you. You've hurt him so much, before. You cup his face in the palm of your hand, brush his scarred lips. You wish you could go back to this sunny afternoon in Lord Golden's apartment when you broke his heart, and tell him the truth instead.

You draw your brow to his, your old shared mark of affection, a promise of closeness. You smile to each other, and the hints of uneasiness recede and give way to mutual confidence.

Your love for him pours out of you like sunlight. For the very first time, you embrace it. Fully, without the heavy clouds of denial.

He's invisible to your Wit, but not to your Skill, especially in the city of dragons. Kelsingra, they call it. Your consciousness of your oldest and dearest friend, so close to you, is acute but also soothing. It surrounds you, like the blankets your bed is lacking.

You want to bring your friendship to a place where you never expected it to be. The lust you've been been denying for so long arise in you like an slow tide. Your voice becomes a whisper.

“Do you want it too?”

The Fool throws himself at you, his arms securely wrapped around your naked body. 

“Oh, Fitz, he sobs. You know I do.”

You lick a tear that rolled on his colorless cheek. His face isn't Amber's and it's not fully the Fool either. It's someone private and vulnerable. Beloved.

You kiss again, with abandon, and you go further. The caresses that you share seem impatient, almost feverish. You explore his scarred and battered body with an overwhelming tenderness.

Your hand doesn't dare to go too far, but it's Beloved himself who seizes your wrist and invites you to touch you there. It's hard to think of anything besides the sensation. You just focus on the now, on making him feel good. The little moans that you coax out of him are the best reward.

It's his ganted hand which seized yours, and yet it has the echo of a familiar gesture. Suddenly, you understand that you did it before, in another life. In Kelsingra. 

You don't want to be carried away by the Skill river, but the memories take you anyway. You have done this before, together, in a past life. Your bodies joined like they do now and you were a White Prophet and their Catalyst, two Elderlings living together in the city of dragons. A couple, who enjoyed talking about history and philosophy in the gardens or in their shared room, and to make love there, as you currently do. 

Your shared past lives intertwine with the present and you don't really know what gestures you are doing, which ones you used to, which ones you've never done before. 

“Do you want more?”, whispers Beloved in your mouth. Close as your minds already are, irrevocably tangled together like a knot of sea serpents, you immediately understand what he's asking for. To mark your wrist again, with his silvered fingers.

You hesitate. In Kelsingra, the Skill river is strong, and could carry you away, carry the both of you away. It's dangerous. It's unwise.

But he's never been wise, and neither did you. 

You silently nod, and Beloved's face lightens up. He presents his ganted hand to you, so fine and delicate, and you remove Amber's glove yourself. At the tip of her long fingers, the Skill. Not a dull and plain version of it, but as bright as the day the Fool's accidentally touched King Verity in the Mountains. 

It's an illumination. 

Your past lives together all come back to your consciousness. You're terribly aware of Beloved and of each inch of their body. You know them. Always had. 

In the strange little bed without covers, you make love slowly, taking all your time. It's a first in this life, but not in the others...

The echoes of your ancient existences sing around you while you do it. You're together, and you're whole. 

You're whole. 


End file.
